The Fall Guy Part 2: Write For Hollywood Without Selling Out

This episode, we are going to be continuing our discussion of The Fall Guy (check out Part 1 of The Fall Guy Podcast). Now, you’re probably wondering, why does this silly blockbuster movie get a two-part podcast installment? There are a couple of reasons for that:

First, if you remember from last week, we’re in a pretty interesting conversation about subtext. We talked about the three different levels of subtext and how that related to metafilm, which is a concept that we haven’t discussed a lot on this podcast. So I’m excited to take a little bit of extra time to look closely at these concepts.

Second, it’s valuable to get a little deeper breaking down a light, superficial Hollywood popcorn movie like The Fall Guy because it is representative a lot of the “work for hire” projects we writers are going to be presented with in the industry. 

There’s a belief among many writers that “in order to succeed, you have to sell out.” But Drew Pearce’s writing on The Fall Guy shows us that, even within the container of a Hollywood popcorn movie, you can still bring your voice and your artistry to the writing process. 

One of the things that I appreciated about The Fall Guy was that the writer Drew Pearce is working inside a framework which is probably not a writer’s dream. 

He’s adapting an 80s silly TV series. Everything’s got to be light. It’s a huge $150 million budget so he has to make sure that doesn’t alienate anybody and that everyone leaves feeling good. Everything’s got to work out at the end. 

So how do you actually perform as an artist inside of a container like that?

Usually, the way you break into the industry is either with a really great script or a really great indie film. Usually, we’re breaking in with our disruptive content- content that maybe isn’t going to make a trillion dollars, but is going to move people and grab people. 

And then suddenly you’ve “made it” and you are getting these work-for-hire assignments where you start to wonder, “I can make them happy, but is it going to make me happy?”

One of the things I find interesting about Drew Pearce’s script for The Fall Guy is that even though he’s working inside of the framework of what the studio wants, he’s also finding opportunities to show you who he is as an artist, to say something, to have some fun, and even to poke some fun in a metafilmic way at exactly the container that he’s been put into.

For all of these reasons, we are going to look at part two of The Fall Guy. We’re going to continue our discussion of subtext, but we’re also going to get a little bit deeper into the concept of metafilm and into another really important concept related to building a marketable screenplay: how do you make things worse and worse and worse for your characters? How do you attack the character at, in this case, the action level, but also how, at the same time, do you attack them on the relational level?

Often in movies, we end up having lots of different threads, and sometimes it feels like those threads are separate from one another. But one of the things The Fall Guy does really well is bringing all of those threads together at the worst possible moment.

Today we’re going to look at the “split-screen” sequence of The Fall Guy really deeply. We’re going to talk about how the scene works structurally, relationally, and meta-filmicly. And we’re going to talk about how pressure is loaded and loaded and loaded onto the character. 

This sequence starts at 45 minutes into the movie if you want to queue it up at home. 

Just to catch you up where we are so far, in case you missed episode one of the podcast:

Colt Seavers, played by Ryan Gosling, is a Hollywood stuntman. Jody Moreno, played by Emily Blunt, is a first-time director who he’s been madly in love with. During an accident in the opening sequence, Colt has been injured. He’s blamed himself for it. He’s cut Jody off from his life and he’s been asked by her producer, Gail, to come back. He’s been told that Jody specifically requested him. And of course, that’s not true, Jody does not want him there. He broke her heart.

But her lead actor, movie star Tom Ryder, is missing. Jody doesn’t know he’s missing-missing. She thinks he’s just having one of his benders. But secretly, Colt is trying to find Tom to save the movie for the woman he loves, and in that way, hopefully to prove himself to her and win her back.

So Colt goes on an adventure to try to find Tom. He gets a lead from Tom’s girlfriend, which of course also happens through a crazy action sequence. He is brought to Tom’s drug dealer, who drugs him. But he manages to get another lead, which is that he has to order the “fruit plate” from a very specific guy at a fancy hotel.

Unfortunately, Colt is hallucinating at this point fro all the drugs. He’s hallucinating a unicorn as he attempts to pull off this next step of trying to track down Tom. 

As you can see, we already have two different structural threads intertwining as we enter this scene from The Fall Guy. 

We already have the really challenging thread: Colt’s got to track down Tom Ryder. But instead of making it easier, even as we’ve given him leads, what the writer has actually done is made things harder. Because as he’s pursuing Tom, he also has to deal with the fact that he’s seeing a unicorn. 

At the beginning of the scene, they make it even a little bit harder because the person that he’s supposed to ask for is not at the desk.

So here’s the beginning of the scene:

COLT: I’d like to speak to Kevin.
DESK CLERK: Kevin’s, uh, on a break.
COLT: Okay, maybe you could help me. Can I order the “fruit plate?”
DESK CLERK: Okay. Do you want me to call “room service?”
COLT: I don't know. Is that what happens?
DESK CLERK: Do you have a room? Should I just– 
COLT: Do I need one? To order the
DESK CLERK: I… 
COLT: The fruit plate.

The unicorn whinnies and walks off, and who appears behind the unicorn? Jody, of course.

Do you see now that we have three levels of problem? How Drew Pearce has now added three different threads of complication to this scene in The Fall Guy?

We have the “noir” mystery problem of trying to track down Tom. We have the complication, the obstacle, which is that Colt is tripping unicorns. And then Drew Pearce makes things worse for the character, by bringing in the woman he loves at the worst possible moment. 

This is the very worst thing that could happen as Colt tries to navigate seeing unicorns, trying to find an actor who the director he loves cannot know disappeared.

JODY: Woof, wow.
COLT: Hi.
JODY: That’s a look.
COLT: Hey.
JODY: What happened to your face?
COLT: Hi.
JODY: Hi, okay. You're good? 
COLT: This is good.
JODY: What's wrong with you?
COLT: It's good to see you.
JODY: Wow, you look terrible.
COLT: You look amazing.

We get this wonderful exchange. Colt is dressed like a moron because he had to pose as Tom to get to his drug dealer. She tells him, “You look terrible.” He tells her “You look beautiful,” because he is tripping.

You can see this is different from the scene we looked at in episode 1 of this podcast. Last episode, everything we looked at was happening in subtext. Everything was pushed down. 

But now the given circumstances are different.

The character is high as a kite and that is affecting the way that he communicates with her. Everything is happening much more on the surface, authentic level. The character is saying exactly what he means. And on the second level, that communication is being received clearly. She is seeing that he is not okay. Something weird is going on. And she’s also receiving his feelings about her.

JODY: Did you fall? What happened?
COLT: Wow, you're so pretty. It's crazy.
JODY: Your face is bleeding.
COLT: What?
JODY: What happened to you?
COLT: Oh. No, I was running. It’s just. I was running.

As we discussed in Episode One of The Fall Guy podcast, we know that Colt’s thing is “thumbs up.” He has to pretend that everything’s fine all the time. 

We know that this is actually the central problem of Colt’s relationship with Jody. “Thumbs up,” even as he pushed her out of his life. “Thumbs up,” I’m fine. “Thumbs up,” I don’t need your help. “Thumbs up,” I’m a tough stuntman. Nothing gets to me. 

We also know that Colt has a problem in thise scene, in addition to his being really high and having to keep it secret, Jody cannot know that her lead actor is missing or that he’s trying to find him.

She can’t know because he’s afraid the pressure’s going to be too much. Metalstorm is the directorial “chance of a  lifetime” for Jody. He wants to save it for her, without adding more pressure to her life. But he makes the mistake again of lying to her.

JODY: Very unusual athleisure wear for a run.
COLT: This? 
JODY: Yeah. 
COLT: Yeah, they gave me the wrong bags at the airport but you it’s… it works. It’s- I can sweat. If I'm going to play Ryder, I thought I should just like cut weight a little.
JODY: You seem kind of tweaky.

You can see, Colt is getting further and further into his lie. To go back to the 3 Levels of Subtext we discussed last episode, that’s happening on the textual level. 

On the second level of Subtext, Jody is not receiving the lie. She’s receiving that he is hiding something. But Jody, on a textual level, is not saying “you’re lying.” She’s saying, “Oh, interesting. Interesting outfit.” She is poking at the issue. But the subtext is, “You’re full of shit, dude. I don’t buy this at all.” 

And so, you can see these same concepts that we talked about last episode happening in a slightly different way.

COLT: I'm a little spotty. When I-  my glucose levels get low, I get a little…
JODY: Okay. Is that a new thing?

So he’s now told her four different lies, but they’re all a different version of “thumbs up.” I’m okay. Nothing’s wrong. 

Jody’s not receiving “thumbs up.” She’s receiving Colt’s being Colt. Colt’s being full of shit. Colt’s lying. 

So the same thing that’s happened in their relationship before is happening again.

So we have the first level: what’s happening in the text. 

We have the second level: what the characters are hearing, and then what the characters are receiving. 

And then on the third level, we have the stories they’re telling themselves and the given circumstances they’re coming in with. 

Colt is telling himself, She’s beautiful. I love her. And, I have to hide this from her. I have to protect her. I can’t let her know that her movie’s at risk. I can’t let her know what’s really going on. I can’t let her know what’s happening, how scared I am. I can’t let her know anything.

And Jody is processing, she’s telling herself a story: same old Colt, being same old Colt, doing the same old stuff all over again.

And she’s partially right, but she’s also partially wrong. Because she doesn’t know that he’s actually trying to prove himself to her and make it up to her and save her movie.

JODY: Is that a new thing? Is that a new thing?
COLT: What’s that?
JODY: Is that a new-
COLT: Is your hair new?
JODY: Yes, I cut it. I changed my hair. You changed your number. We're even. I thought we'd sort of even the score.

Look what’s happening on the textual level. Jody has gone from talking in a subtextual way to talking in a textual way. She’s basically saying “You’re kidding, you’re gonna try to seduce me now? You hurt me.”.

COLT: Yeah. I have a lot of new... You know, I've learned a lot about myself since... since we’ve last seen each other.
JODY: Why'd you disappear like that? God, I wanted to be there for you.

Now we get the clearest line ever. We’re back in those melodrama lines. She’s literally saying, “Why did you disappear? God, I wanted to be there for you.” And I’m not using the word melodrama in a negative way. I’m trying to show you the scale of subtext: how characters can go, within the same scene, from talking in veiled code to talking in clear ways where they say exactly what they mean.

Because what Drew Pearce is really doing in this scene from The Fall Guy is escalating the conflict from the scene that we discussed in episode one. Rather than speaking “meta-filmicly” and subtextually, Jody and Colt are now really talking about themselves. 

Drew Pearce has stripped away the layer of meta here, but only for a little while.

Gail comes in and interrupts. She needs Jody and she’s going to pull her away, but before she does, we get this little exchange.

GAIL: (to Colt) How’s she supposed to do quality work if you keep harassing her all the time? (into cell phone) Okay. (to Jody) Can you go and grab your things? We have really-- 
JODY: Okay.
GAIL: Gotta zip.
JODY: Yep.
COLT: What's going on?
GAIL: Seriously. Colt, you're... You look like you've been busy.
COLT: Yeah, real busy, Gail.
GAIL: Yeah, good.
COLT: Lot of running around, Gail.
GAIL: We'll get a drink and discuss that. But right now, the studio... so far up my ass, I can taste them.

In this little interchange with Gail, you notice there’s subtext happening. Colt’s saying, on the textual level, “Lot of running around, Gail.” 

On the subtextual level, Colt is saying “You sent me on this crazy adventure, you know what’s going on, and now you’re acting like nothing’s happening.”

GAIL: (to Jody) We need your third act.
JODY: Okay. Yep.
COLT: You having problems with the third act?
GAIL: We’re gonna…
JODY: Yea
GAIL:  We’re gonna go and do things right now.
JODY: That’s it. I’m gonna go write it. I just… 

We’re back now to the metafilm and you can see, almost everything is game in the improv sense as we discussed in my Beef Podcast. 

Colt asks, “You having problems with the third act?” And this is just a little gift that the writer is giving himself. He’s basically going, Oh, remember I had that cool game (in the scene I talked about last episode). I had that cool game where instead of talking about the relationship, they talk about the script. What if I play that game again and outdo it?” 

As we get deeper into this analysis you’ll see exactly how. But here’s the thing I want you to understand right now: Drew Pearce is essentially responding to the challenge of writing The Fall Guy by telling himself: Okay, this is what they’re asking for and I’m going to give it to them and it’s going to be a crowd pleaser and no one’s going to get hurt. But I am still an artist and I’m going to find room to do my art inside of the container that I need to work in for this movie.

The Fall Guy is not a melodrama. The Fall Guy is not a drama. The Fall Guy is a goofy, silly action movie, a Hollywood framework within which Drew Pearce is still finding room to show you his voice as a writer. 

So for the most part, Drew Pearce keeps it light as he builds the tension and the connection and the spark between these characters. But every once in a while, when the time is right, he chooses his moment to actually go deep: Now the characters are going to say what they feel. 

In a drama or a melodrama, characters might express their real feelings throughout the script. In a comedy like The Fall Guy, almost all of the “saying what we feel” is couched around silliness, game, and a freaking unicorn. And what that does is– even though it allows us to have these real moments– it pulls them up to the surface and keeps them light, which is the tone that this writer is going for.

JODY: It's like the studio are wanting me to contort the love story so that it all ends happily and everything's rosy and... 
GAIL: Jody, Jody, Jody.
JODY: I feel like if I lean into reality, then maybe that's the way to go and most love stories don't end well. Usually. Know what I mean?

So we get this wonderful little exchange from Jody, in which she basically communicates, Yeah, I’m having trouble with the third act. The studio wants it to be a perfect little love story. But I don’t believe in that love story anymore. 

So on the textual level, she’s actually talking about a real problem she’s having with the script. She and the studio are at odds. (You will certainly find yourself in that place if you do any professional writing). She’s trying to figure out the same thing the real writer, Drew Pearce, is trying to figure out: how do I give them what they want and also do what I want. That is a fundamental question that all writers need to ask themselves.

On the second level, she’s not talking about the movie at all. She is communicating subtextually to Colt: You made me stop believing in love and therefore I don’t want to make a movie about love. 

That’s Jody is saying to Colt. And that’s what Colt is receiving.

And then there’s the third level of everything the characters are bringing with them to the scene. And on top of all that, this metafilm game, which is that this silly Metalstorm movie is actually a reflection of Jody’s belief in love and the container through which she is going to process whether she can believe in love again.

COLT: I strongly disagree with that, so we should keep chopping it up.
JODY: Yeah? Should we?
COLT: It's important. It's the ending.
JODY: Okay

On the textual level, they actually are talking about the ending that they’re trying to figure out. On the subtextual level, Colt is saying, I think we could be in love again. I think maybe this could be a happy ending for us. I think maybe this could work out. You can see how this subtext is continuing through this scene, and wow the writer is continuing to play the game.

Jody gets pulled away. And the hotel clerk Colt’s been looking for appears, and Colt is back on his mission.

KEVIN: (clears throat) Sir?
COLT: Huh?
KEVIN: Hi.
COLT: Yeah.
KEVIN: Hi. Um, I hear that you're interested in a… a fruit platter.
COLT: (whispering) Kevin?
HOTEL CLERK: (whispering) Yes. Yeah. Okay, so… it’s on… it’s on ice.

So, you see, we don’t really give a crap about the fruit plate (and by the way, the fruit plate, of course, is not a fruit plate). Yes, we’re enjoying the action. But the emotional value of the scene is all taking place in the hot relationships.

And this is one of the ways that you navigate what the studios, what the producer, what your manager, what your agent is asking for from you while doing your art. You start to say to yourself, I have to give them this, but this is just the surface. What actually matters is what’s going on underneath. And that’s where I get to do my real art. That’s where I don’t have to compromise. I don’t have to sell out.

As long as you give them the genre elements they’re asking for, the plot elements that they’re asking for and the tone that they are asking for, you have tremendous latitude to play as a screenwriter, just as Drew Pearce is showing in The Fall Guy. 

Even though they think they know what they want from you, they hired you to play. They hired you for your voice. And so part of becoming a professional writer is learning to play inside of the container.

The scene continues. 

We get action music. We’re watching still drugged Colt go down the hallway with the key card he’s received. He knocks on the door. Nobody answers. He tries swiping. It doesn’t work. And he’s back at the front desk.

This is just game, again. Remember in the last episode we talked about wherever your character is, whatever fun location you’re choosing, you need to activate the location? You need to activate the other characters inside of the location. The scene does not exist just to get your character from A to B. Every element of your scene needs to be alive.

If you’ve been at a hotel, you’ve had this experience, and that’s part of the reason this game is so much fun. 

The writer is providing a fun little obstacle that again, reminds you, this is not action, this is not a noir mystery, this is a comedy. You see the way they’re playing with pace: he finally gets the card and he’s back to the action sequence and it doesn’t work. 

By the time we’re done, he’s going to knock down the door, Fall Guy style. He bursts into the darkly lit room. And remember, he’s still tripping. We need the unicorn.

There are now four different threads happening in this sequence. 

Thread number one is the action-noir-mystery-comedy. How are we going to find Tom? 

Number two is tripping. There’s a unicorn that seems real. 

Number three is wrong guy at the desk, wrong key card. All the little obstacles of the hotel itself. 

And number four is Jody. 

So, of course, what happens? His phone rings. Jody has decided to take him up on his offer to talk about the third act.

COLT: Hello?
JODY: (over phone) What do you think about split screen?
COLT: Jody?

This the beginning of what I think is the most interesting, complicated and fun scene inside this totally goofy, surface-level popcorn Fall Guy movie. 

Remember that metafilm thing we were doing? Remember, how whenever they’re talking about Metalstorm and they’re really talking about their relationship. What if we didn’t just do that? What if we took the metafilm to the next level? What if they were also talking about the movie that we are watching?”

Jody calls. She wants to talk about the third act. Colt is so excited, because he realizes that, even though in the text she’s talking about the third act, he’s not receiving the third act words. He’s receiving, maybe you and I can figure out a happy ending. 

She wants to talk about split screen, okay, that’s what we’re going to talk about.

But the split screen, of course, is just the text, because once again they’re really having a subtextual conversation about their relationship. 

JODY: Yeah. Is this okay I'm calling?  You said to call and…
COLT: Yeah, it’s fine.
JODY: Yeah? We could chop it up?
COLT: It’s uh…. Let's chop it up. It's a good time. I'm not doing anything.
JODY: Ok, great. Uh, so…

This is Colt doing “thumbs up” again. He is literally in a dark hotel room, seeing a unicorn, trying to figure out what the “fruit platter” is that’s going to let him find Tom and save her movie. But he goes, “It’s a good time. I’m not doing anything,” Just like he says, “Set me on fire again. Throw me against the rock,” in the scene we discussed last episode. 

JODY: …split screen, right? Do you think that it's, like, nostalgic, super-cool or do you think…
COLT: mmm
JODY: …it's a gimmick?

And we go to split screen.

Now, here’s what I love about this. You can see the different levels of metafilm happening here. 

On one level, you can see Drew Pearce literally putting his anxiety as a writer into the script for The Fall Guy 

On some level, the writer is saying, Holy crap. I’m about to try something crazy. Is it going to be cool? Is it going to be cheesy? Is it going to be stupid? Are people going to laugh at me? Does it suck? Is it good?

And this is a feeling that almost all of us have when we really shoot for the fences. We have that feeling of, what if we fail? 

The brilliant idea here, even though the movie’s silly as hell, is, what if I take my anxiety and, instead of letting it sit in me, give it to the character and let the character comment on it?

This happens even if you’re not doing something that’s clearly metafilm. There’s a great story about Paddy Chayefsky when he was working on Network, writing in his journal about all his anxiety about why the American audience wasn’t going to want his movie. And he famously gave that monologue to Faye Dunaway’s character. It’s the monologue that she delivers to her network executives about all their project pitches.

As we’re about to see, Drew Pearce is also putting his anxiety about some of the choices the producers have likely asked for into the writing.

There’s a good chance that the producers have told him they don’t really want to see the dark sides of either of these characters. They don’t want to see real mistakes happen between these characters. And the result is: there’s actually very little keeping these characters apart.

There’s no real emotional problem that’s hard to surmount, other than the fact that Colt made a mistake a long time ago that he’s trying to make up for. 

In other words, Drew Pearce realizes that the stakes in The Fall Guy are low. And he makes a brilliant choice here to give that concern to the characters too!

You’ll see how he does that in a moment.

But first: we have this first level of metafilm where the writer is literally putting his concerns into the characters’ mouths. 

We have the second level of metafilm: we’re going to play the game again where the characters are going to talk about Metalstorm, but really process their relationship. 

And then we have the third level of metafilm where we’re watching what Colt and Jody are talking about doing in Metalstorm, actually happen in the movie about the making of Metalstorm– in other words, The Fall Guy movie we’re watching.

So we’re now at three different levels of metafilm: watching a movie about people making a movie about a relationship. And all these levels are vibrating at the same time, just like the four different threads of the action-noir-adventure-comedy, the tripping obstacle, the hotel obstacles, and the Jody relationship. 

All are resonating at the same time.

This is what you’re  looking for when you try to build your script, whether it’s a big Hollywood tentpole like The Fall Guy or the tiniest indie feature. In each act, you’re adding pressure, you’re adding vibration, until the threads of your script are not vibrating separately, but rather all vibrating at the same level. 

What’s so interesting is that Drew Pearce is doing that with very little conflict, with very little happening at all.

COLT: (groans) Um, I think it could be super cool.
JODY: Mmhmm?
COLT: Yea, how do you uh, want to use it? You know, tell me. Tell me everything. Tell me, you know, about your vision.

Now this is the next question that you want to be asking yourself as a writer, when you’re wondering, is it good or is it not good? If you have the idea, go for it. But ask yourself, how are you going to use it?

Just like Colt is asking Jody, start to get specific about how are you going to do it differently than other people have done it. 

And you can see what Drew Pearce and what the director David Leitch do here. We’re in split screen with Colt and Jody, and they’re both walking toward the center of the screen, in different settings. So, in split screen, we’re watching them walking towards each other. There’s a visual level of metaphorical commentary happening here too. 

And we’re starting to play a game inside of the split screen. How can we use split screen in a way it has not been used before?

This is what you’re doing as a writer. This is my container. How do I do it differently than it’s been done before? 

JODY: So, I like that they're on screen together. 
COLT: Right.
JODY: But they are in separate worlds…

And of course that is what we are seeing. But another wonderful tool that the writer is using here is that same location idea we’ve been exploring for two podcasts now.

Your characters are in a location. That means you want to activate the location. 

Jody is in the prop/costume room with all the alien costumes and all the stills from Metalstorm, so we want to activate her world. We want the character to be doing something inside of her world so that we can milk that for awesome visuals. 

Colt is in a hotel room. We want him to be doing something inside the hotel room that connects to his want, so we can anchor him as well in awesome visuals. 

And we know from their conversation on the textual level that, on the metafilmic level, we want to amplify how different their worlds are.

There’s been a fun game with Colt throughout this whole movie. He’s just been trying to get a cup of coffee and the cup of coffee just never comes. It keeps on getting spilled. It keeps on getting knocked over. It keeps on not being there. And all he wants is a cup of coffee, because he’s jet lagged. He’s just flown. And in the hotel room, there is a coffee maker. 

So we’re going to watch Colt finally make his cup of coffee in his world. While in the Metalstorm costume shop world, we’re going to watch Jody put on one of the hand pieces of the aliens. 

Watch how, just by activating the character– by having them doing something– they start to  find ways to make the split screen idea even cooler.

JODY: But they are in separate worlds… you know, visually and emotionally.  So you've got this very prominent divide between the lovers. And I want that.

On level one, there’s text about the movie. Visually, we’re seeing the divide, her with her monster arm, him trying to make a coffee. On the subtextual level, there is text about the relationship. Colt, even though he’s tripping, receives both messages. 

COLT: You want the divide?
JODY: I want the divide, yes.

They’re talking on all these different levels about the movie, about the movie inside the movie, about the writer’s desire, about the director’s desire, about the relationship that they’re having. And Colt’s having a revelation that she is putting up a wall on purpose between the two of them.

COLT: Hmm. It's funny 'cause I didn't get the impression that there was that much keeping them apart.
JODY: Well, you haven't read the script.

As we’ve discussed, here Colt is literally expressing what is almost certainly Drew Pearce’s concerns about his own script. It’s the writer owning, I know, I don’t have any real stakes happening here. 

But as a character, what Colt is communicating is: You want the divide? It’s not necessary.

Drew Pearce is taking the problem in the structure of The Fall Guy that most likely has been foisted upon him by the studio and he is featuring it. He is turning it into the thing that’s cool.

So then we get this nice cut. Jody goes into the rack and slides the costumes apart at the same time Colt goes into the closet and slides the coats apart. We get this nice little match. 

Visually, what this is telling us is that they’re in related worlds, even though they think they’re so far apart.

This is the writer and the director yes…and-ing.

Is there really a dividing line? Are these characters really so far apart? Their words are telling us one thing. Their visuals are telling us another.

And this is the next thing that I want to talk about. 

Visuals also create subtext. There is also a conversation happening between words and visuals in your movie.

And sometimes they line up and sometimes they don’t. And that conversation between words and visuals allows the audience to receive- just like characters receiving subtext- two different messages at the same time, which builds depth and complexity, even if you’re doing a silly little scene like this.

COLT: All I know so far is that the alien lady and the cowboy are having what seem to be pretty manageable problems.

So, Colt plays the game again. “It seems like the alien lady and the cowboy are having what seems to be pretty manageable problems.” Of course, he’s dressed up in his ridiculous suit, trying to look like the guy playing Space Cowboy (Tom). And just in case it’s not clear that they are talking about Jody, she is literally wearing the alien hand. Jody is Aliana right now. 

This is just taking that level of metafilm and playing with it, keeping the world activated. As does this little moment with the costume designer asking for an approval.

COSTUME DESIGNER: (interrupts) Jody? Jo-

JODY: (turning away from the costume designer) Manageable problems? The aliens invaded Earth, and they left it in tatters. So this whole thing the studio are pushing for, the 'love conquers all' thing… (inhales deeply) I’m not buying it.
COLT: Well I have to admit that I’m surprised to hear you say that.
JODY: Why?
COLT: Well I’m just a boy in a neon suit standing in front of a girl, reminding her that Notting Hill is her favorite movie and she watches Love, Actually every year at Christmas.

On the surface, they’re playing the game of talking about the script again, but in a cooler visual way. On the second level, what’s actually being received is: we’re not talking about the studio. We’re talking about you, Colt. You’re telling me this is all going to work out. I received your message and I disagree.

Visually, if you look at this image, you will see the director playing. 

Jody is coming forward. Colt is flopping back onto the bed. 

So we’ve had the characters coming together with the wall between them. We’ve had them both coming forward. Now we’ve had her coming forward, him flopping back. You can see the director, potentially with the help of the writer, playing with all the different things we can do inside of a split screen that you have not seen exactly this way before.

This is our job when working inside of a container, whether that container is the desire of the producer or the studio, or whether that container is your own idea. Our job is to play. 

Our job is to think about the variations. Our job is to think about the different threads that are active, and keeping all those threads active. Our job is to think about all the elements in the room that they can be doing things with.

If there are other characters, what are the other characters’ point of view? How do we keep all of these things active while keeping our focus on the main thing that matters, which is always the relationship between the characters?

We cut to a shot in split screen where Colt and Jody are both sitting down. And we see them back in sync together. The writer and director are actually telling the story of the movie through the visuals: we’re together, we’re apart, we’re together, we’re apart. 

And we are having fun with the way that what the characters are saying sometimes does, other times does not match up with their actions. 

Here, Colt kicks his foot up at the same time that Jody kicks her foot up. We are watching characters in sync as they have this conversation.

These two characters are connecting again. Their physicality is, this time, in alignment. Before, when we had the scene where they’re looking through the coats and the costumes, we had them out of alignment. We had their words saying, “we’re apart,” and their visuals saying, “we’re together.” Here, their visuals are saying “we’re together.”

She crosses her legs, he crosses his legs. They’re mirroring each other. They’re connected. And their words are saying “we’re together.” 

So, now we move into a replay of an old game they used to play together.

They’re looking back at the game that they’ve played together in good times, which was the “romantic comedy” game. This is a game that they played together in the opening scenes of The Fall Guy. And as we watch them pick up that old game together, we get to tell ourselves a story beyond what they can imagine for themselves: oh, they are coming back together. 

Colt reminds Jody that Notting Hill and Love, Actually are her favorite movies. And their conversation about whether or not love is possible continues. 

JODY: Well, you know, I watched it again this year and I didn't love it, actually.

Now they’re coming back apart. 

Is there a huge obstacle pulling them back apart? No. There’s a tiny little obstacle, which is that she’s not sure if she’s ready to give him another chance.

It’s the same game as talking about Metalstorm, but now they’re gonna talk about a different movie, Love, Actually.

Colt leans back again. They’re going to fall apart. They’re going to come together. They’re going to get in sync. They’re going to fall apart. 

And every time they get in sync, what it’s telling us visually, what we’re receiving as an audience, regardless of their words, is that these characters are meant for each other.

COLT:  Wow. 
JODY: Yeah.
COLTt: It's worse than I thought.
JODY: I'm ruined. Yeah, it's a really sad day for Notting Hill as well. That 'happily ever after' stuff, unsubscribe me.
COLT: I didn't get 'happily ever after' from Notting Hill.
JODY: What are you talking about? Of course you did.
COLT: Did you?
JODY: Yes, of course. They're... They're on the park bench. She's got her head in his knee. She's a ‘regular girl.’
COLT: Maybe, but we don't know for sure she's not gonna go back to working the street. All we know is that in the beginning, she's pretty much up for anything but kissing, and in the end, she's open to kissing him.
JODY: (laughs) No.
COLT: And it gives us hope. 
JODY: You have got your Julia Roberts movies so twisted.
COLT: And that’s all we want. A little hope.
JODY: No, that is Pretty Woman, where she is a lady of the night, and this is Notting Hill, where she's a very famous actress.
COLT: Oh. Well, don't listen to me, what do I know?

So, textually, they are out of sync. He’s talking about Pretty Woman. She’s talking about Notting Hill. But on the subtextual level, they’re actually connecting through their out of sync language. They are starting to enjoy each other again.

On the level of what’s being received: they are both receiving that we’re really talking about their relationship. 

On the level of the stories that they’re telling themselves: they are both flirting with the same question, can we be back together again? Is it actually possible?  

Visually, the images are telling us that these characters are in sync.

If you look at the image at 50 minutes and 48 seconds, you’ll see that they’re facing each other. They’re in exactly the same position. They are mirroring each other, even though they are technically arguing over whether love is actually possible or not.

But the writer and director are playing the game slightly differently. If they play it exactlythe same way again, it’s going to get boring. 

What’s the game? They activate her “alien hand.”

So she’s going to mirror him, but as she mirrors him, she’s using the alien hand. And what this does is it brings us back to, this is a comedy. This is funny. This is not drama. We are not going to let it become melodramatic, even though they’re going to talk about real stuff.

COLT: Look, you’re the director, you’re going to make the right choice. I’m just saying, for people like me, who may not necessarily get the metaphor-
JODY: You may not all get the deeper metaphor, but you’re gonna see it. You’re gonna see this bright line between them but we're gonna ache to see blur.

As we come in close on them, we literally see the line and we literally feel the ache.

This scene from The Fall Guy is like a masterclass from a really good writer and a really good director about how to use visuals and action to tell your story, how to activate your surrounding, and how to do something really complicated inside of a simple and limited box.

JODY: You know, but maybe it can't. 
COLT: Mm.
JODY: Maybe it doesn't.
COLT: Right. Right. Yeah (breathes deeply).

He puts his head into his hand. And she puts her head into her alien hand. 

And you see all the different levels that are happening here? 

We have the comedy of these two trying to come together, and we see what’s different about them visually. We have the visual message being communicated to the audience, which is they are literally mirroring each other. They’re meant for each other. They’re connected. 

We have the words that are being communicated, which actually fight against that. Maybe it’s just not possible. 

We have the emotional level of what’s being received, which contrasts with the visual of how connected they are: maybe this is not going to work out.

And what all these things do together is create this incredible feeling of so much fun, but also so much emotional tension. 

We are longing, wishing for those lines to be dissolved. And what this writer is doing that’s so brilliant is taking this very minor problem and making it matter. 

He’s taking the thing that shouldn’t work in his script- that very little actually separates these characters– and he’s making it work by activating all these different levels of subtext, metafilm, levels of play and game.

COLT: But what do we know, right? ‘Cause all we know at this point is that the cowboy likes the alien. Does the alien like the cowboy?

Throughout these lines, again, they keep everything activated. She’s stroking her eyebrow with that big alien hand. 

What’s happening on the primary textual level is they’re talking about the movie. On the subtextual level, he’s saying, “I like you. Do you still like me?” 

You can see that the relational level what’s being communicated has been elevated. She is receiving his message and he is receiving hers. 

And on the stories, what he’s basically saying is let’s throw out all our stories. This comes down to one really simple question: I like you. Do you like me?

You can see the writer is essentially saying, I know there’s not a lot keeping these people apart. I know that that’s not what the producers want. We don’t want real betrayal. We don’t want real cruelty. We don’t want real anger. We don’t want the real dark sides of these characters. We don’t want the shadow self coming out. No, this has got to be light and fun and not piss anybody off. Because hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line.

They’re trying to play it safe, but they’re taking huge risks inside of that container. 

They boil it all down the real question: What do we know? I like you. Do you like me?’ 

And we feel the scene drawing towards its completion because Colt has forced Jody to choose. Is she going to say she likes him? Is she going to admit it? Or is she going to refuse?

JODY: She's on the fence. 

And she chooses neither!

COLT: Right. Because they got problems. Because she's an alien, and he's a cowboy, and that's a problem. 

And if you look at the smile on her face in this image, you will see that she knows this really isn’t a problem.   

She covers her head in that giant, silly alien arm. She’s given him an obstacle. She’s not going to answer the question. She’s on the fence. 

Colt: But is it a problem they can’t overcome?

He is forcing Jody to make a relational choice. He is forcing the scene to actually take a step forward. 

And this is another really masterful point. 

Often, as writers, we’re scared of what will happen if we really allow the character to make a choice? So we allow our characters to stay in this wishy-washy place. But every scene needs to drive forward, not just the plot of the story, but the emotional transaction of the hot relationship. 

We cannot let the characters idle in place. Every scene must move them in some way. And so the expert move that’s happening here in this script grows from simply allowing Colt to hold on to his want in the face of her obstacle. 

Colt wants to convince her to try. 

The obstacle: She’s on the fence. 

But Drew Pearce is not going to let Colt let go of the want. He’s going to push her until she makes a choice.

COLT: Here’s a question. Are they even gonna try? What do you think? Do you think they’re gonna try?

JODY: I think (sighs)... I think this was a great brainstorm.

And she walks out of frame. 

This is one last level of subtext. 

We have watched these characters, for couple of minutes, mirror each other in this split screen. 

So the director does a different variation on the split screen and we watch one character exit. 

On the textual level, Jody is saying, “Great brainstorm, thanks for the help.” 

On the subtextual level, she says, I’m not ready to try right now. She does make a choice not to try. 

On the receiving level, he receives her message, I’m done for now. I’m not ready to try.

On the visual level, we receive the message, she’s not ready to try. 

We are literally looking at his face in an empty screen.

We then cut. They’re standing again. We have the beautiful images of Metalstorm in the background, just in case we weren’t meta enough. 

They’re gonna come back together, facing each other. 

COLT: So… what’d you decide about the split screen?

We’re back to talking about the movie (We’re not really talking about the movie. This is his last shot).

JODY: I have a better idea.

And she hangs up. 

She slides out. And remember, we’ve got this thread of the unicorn. 

Well, that thread is going to come back. We get a split screen. He’s now looking at the unicorn with the exact same light on the other side. 

We’ve realized by now what the unicorn represents.

Remember, this sequence started when the unicorn walks off screen and Jody appears. The sequence ends with Jody walks off screen and the unicorn appears. 

The sequence begins with “Let’s talk about the third act.” The sequence ends with “I’ve got a better idea” and she walks off. 

We can feel the journey happening, but again, because of the unicorn, rather than playing as melodrama, it plays as comedy.

COLT:  I don't think you need it. I think the connection between these characters is so strong that nothing can come between them.

He says, “I don’t think you need it” about the new idea. 

But he’s not talking to her, she’s gone. He’s talking to the unicorn. 

And we get this wonderful final image before he’s realized that she’s hung up. 

The image tells us that he’s still hoping. He hasn’t realized he’s lost her. 

You can see the scene has come to a completion. She’s chosen to do something else. And he is now talking to his projection of Jody rather than to Jody herself.

COLT: Jod? Jody?

And then he realizes. He looks in towards the unicorn. He turns to walk back out. The unicorn does too. And we are back into a regular shot. 

And this of course is going to take us back to the action sequence and discovering what the “fruit platter” really is.

So hopefully this deep dive into this really fun complicated scene inside the silliest, most surfacey, most popcorn movie that we could be analyzing has shown you a couple things. 

Number one, hopefully it’s shown you the different levels of subtext. 

Hopefully, it’s shown you the way that visuals and subtext can work together in film. 

Hopefully, it’s shown you some ways that you can play inside a container in your own writing, whether that is a container that is imposed upon you from the outside by the genre, by a producer, by an agent, by an investor, by an actor, by a director, or whether that container is the container of your own idea that maybe you don’t know if you can pull off.

Hopefully you have learned some ways to be an artist, even inside of a container, whether or not it’s of your own making. 

Hopefully you’ve learned some tools that you can use to activate the location, to activate the environment, to activate the other people in the environment. 

And hopefully, you’ve learned some tools that you can use– instead of dealing with threads separately– to keep all the different threads active in order to build crisis and complexity and challenge inside of your writing.

But having talked about all these complex ideas- not to mention metafilm- I want to bring it back to one simple thing: 

Yeah, The Fall Guy has a got a lot going on for a silly movie. But what matters is not the unicorn, is not the “fruit plate,” is not the action. That’s just the container. 

The heart of The Fall Guy and the thing that makes the movie work is the relationship and the structure of the relationship between Colt and Jody.

When you read reviews of The Fall Guy they are all going to tell you the movie succeeds because of the wonderful chemistry between these actors.

And yes, these are great actors and the chemistry is there.  

But hopefully what you’ve learned from this podcast is that that chemistry was built in the script.

Even if you put less gifted actors The Fall Guy, the writer and the director have actor-proofed the script by finding the visuals, the choices, the lines, the levels of subtext, the levels of metafilm, the levels of mirroring and visuals that are necessary to create the feeling of connection between the characters.

In other words, your job as the writer is not just to write some lines that a great actor elevates. Your job is to write the lines and the images through which even an intern reading can see the chemistry.

You want to write so that even if you just get a reasonably ok actor, the chemistry is going to be there. So that in the hands of truly great actors like these, can be elevated to an even higher level.

I hope that you enjoyed this podcast. If you’d like to learn more about how to use these tools come join me for free every Thursday night at Thursday Night Writes. It’s a wonderful opportunity for you to not only get deeper lectures on these concepts, but also to get writing exercises that will help you use them in your own writing among a community of writers from all around the world.

And if you’re getting value from listening, please like The Write Your Screenplay Podcast on whatever your favorite streaming platform is, and write us a five-star review. You keep our podcast alive, so thank you for your support and your help and talking to your friends and reviewing us and all the wonderful things you do to keep our community going.

*edited for length and clarity

Check out Part 1 of this Write Your Screenplay Podcast Episode

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